Where were you? by Starrbaby

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Where were you?

POSTED BY: STARRBABY
UPDATED: Monday, September 19, 2005 12:50
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Sunday, September 11, 2005 9:10 AM

So where were you, and how did you learn of the attacks 4 years ago?
I was a university student, and I had just drug my lazy butt out of bed to go to my on-campus job. I was taking the elevator down to the main floor of our dorm when a gal friend of mine told me.

At lunch, I jokingly asked my then boyfriend (He's now my husband and the father of my twin sons . . .who are overdue and driving me nuts) if he wanted to get married incase he get drafted. He looked at me like I was on drugs. I then realized that he probably hadn't even seen the news, and this was the first time he'd been on campus all day.

The part of that day that I remember the most is that the powers that be on campus locked up all the dorms so that no one could get in without their key. This wasn't to ward of any terrorist, as we lived in rural mid-Amreica. This was to protect our middle eastern studnets from the ignorant community.

Okay, your turn!

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Monday, September 12, 2005 2:04 AM

BLUEBOMBER

I was still in college, on my way to theatre class that morning. When I got to the room all the other students were standing around outside, chattering. I asked what was going on and a guy told me that a plane had just crashed into the Pentagon.

My initial reaction: I laughed. Yeah, I know that makes me sound like an ass, but I really thought he was joking (the guy had a reputation for being a bit of a clown). Besides, I figured, that's not something that would happen here. Just goes to show you how vulnerable we all are...Then the professor arrived and told us classes had been cancelled. I walked around campus a bit, and all I heard was people talking. A few were crying. Some were angry; more were scared. All were glued to the TV. The student union was overcrowded with people watching the news.

I went back to my room and watched for a bit. Then I turned it off. Later that day, my friend and I got together and went swimming at the lake. Not because we didn't care what was happening - we both donated money and blood for relief - but because we were grateful to be alive, and wanted to celebrate that.

All politics aside, my prayers go out to families who lost loved ones on that tragic day, as well as to the victims of Katrina. For this one day at least, let us all put the finger-pointing and name-calling to rest, and take a moment to remember the fallen.

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Monday, September 12, 2005 3:04 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

I was at work. It was a slow morning so I checked into a car-related site I frequent. One of the topics was "!!!A Plane Just Hit The WTC!!!" which someone started when they heard the news on radio. Pretty soon there were eye-wtness descriptions of both WTC hits and the Pentagon attack. That thread went to over 30 pages by the end of the day.

About the time of the second WTC hit, our building's internal TV system, with a wall-mounted set in each elevator lobby, came on tuned to CNN.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Monday, September 12, 2005 3:25 AM

FIVVER

I was at my desk in the largest office tower in Atlanta. My mom called and told me a plane had hit the WTC. I turned on my radio and listened for a while and then went into a conference room to watch on TV just as the second plane struck. A few minutes later we were given the order to evacuate the building.

I have to give MARTA (Atlanta's mass transit authority) a lot of credit. They had already initiated their emergency evacuation plan and there were rifle toting SWAT Team members in the Peachtree Center Station to keep order and provide security. The station attendants had propped open the large wheelchair fare gates and were just waving people right on through. There was no muss, no fuss and no hysteria - just calmly getting people out.

Fivver

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Tuesday, September 13, 2005 11:23 AM

ODDNESS2HER

At home, just starting what I thought was going to be another average Tuesday. I turned on the bedroom TV while getting dressed for work. At first I thought I was seeing a clip from some upcoming movie; slowly caught on that I was watching something real. Not a good feeling.

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Tuesday, September 13, 2005 12:33 PM

CHRISISALL

I was at work in a convenience store on Long Island (26 miles from Ground Zero) putting in my last 3 days as my family had just moved to Massachusetts, and I was to join them that weekend. We were listening to Howard Stern on the radio, when suddenly someone in his group said that a WTC tower was on fire, and they had a good view of it from their window in Manhattan. Minutes later they described the second plane hitting. His normally crazy/dirty show turned into the most lucid coverage of an event I'd ever heard on radio. And customers in the store suddenly lost the speed in their stride, and hung around to listen with others as the terror unfolded on the East Coast.
I was able to join my family the next week, after they opened the bridges coming off the Island.

Chrisisall

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Tuesday, September 13, 2005 12:48 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

On the West Coast, I was up getting coffee and making b'fast and lunches. I heard on the radio that a twin-engine plane had crashed into the WTC, but I thought it was just a little private plane flown by a drunk or sick pilot. Then I went to work. I didn't realize the magnitude of the situation until I got in and saw the crowd of people in the lunchroom watching TV.

Please don't think they give a shit.

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Wednesday, September 14, 2005 5:21 AM

XENOCIDE

Also in college, my penultimate semester. Geting up in my apartment, my girlfriend (now wife) called me and told me to turn on the TV just in time to see the second plane hit. Spent the rest of the day first waiting to give blood, then with my mother, a New Yorker.

-Eli

If voting mattered, they'd make it illegal.
www.civil-unrest.com

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Wednesday, September 14, 2005 5:45 AM

R1Z

I was on the road with my boss, midway through a five-hour drive to go pitch a potential new client. Suddenly, both our cell phones started ringing. We turned the car radio to NPR and followed the coverage. Decided since we were more than halfway there, we might as well keep going. Got to the potential client and the smoking towers were on the tv in the lobby/waiting area.

Took the tour and made the pitch with one eye on the tv coverage (both us and the client.) Not ideal marketing conditions, but we landed the client.

To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks. --Robt. Heinlein

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Wednesday, September 14, 2005 7:27 AM

GUNRUNNER

Senor year of High School at the time. We heard over the schools PA. My buddies and me got to talking (we were sort of the military experts of the class, half of us are now enlisted), I concluded it was a private plane or chartered corporate jet loaded with explosives used by terrorists. I guess I was half right.

EV Nova Firefly mod Message Board:
http://s4.invisionfree.com/GunRunner/index.php?act=idx

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Wednesday, September 14, 2005 8:08 AM

HERO

Watching Fox and Friends getting ready to head out for my mid-morning Commercial Law class. I hated Commercial Law, thankfully the bar exam asked the one and only item of commercial law that I actually knew and understood.

Anyway, there I was watching TV coverage of a plane hitting the WTC. Then they showed another one hitting and I thought, wow they already have a replay and such a good camera shot as well. Only it wasn't a replay.

School was cancelled and we spent the rest of the week watching the news.

H

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Wednesday, September 14, 2005 9:20 AM

EST120

I was in graduate school and my friend and I were discussing how we were looking forward to our weekly Tuesday evening pickup basketball game. Needless to say, we did not play that night.

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Thursday, September 15, 2005 1:48 AM

HARDWARE

I was asleep in bed and my girlfriend came and woke me up after the second plane hit.

I had finished working a project in July for a company that was housed in WTC1 on the 77th floor. I wasn't sure if that was the first tower hit or the second. Important knowledge because CNN was reporting the second plane hit at the 78th floor level.

My client, and the guys I worked with and talked to every day were in WTC7, which collapsed later that day.

The bad news is this started over a year of unemployment for me as I was scheduled to begin another contract with the same company and the same client on September 17th.

The good news is nobody I knew, either at my company or my client was killed. My company had no injuries or fatalities. My client had 1 fatality from a different area. The guys I worked with excaped uninjured, although one guy had to run for his life as he was on the street below the first plane's impact zone. Another guy had debris crash through the window of his office area in WTC7. Everyone I worked with that was in NYC has a story from that day and the days immediately afterward.

The more I get to know people the more I like my dogs.

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Thursday, September 15, 2005 1:54 AM

FRAY101

I'm in the UK.

September 10th, my friend & I were finalising our plans to visit New York the following January. Hadn't booked yet, but we'd finally decided on a hotel etc. We were sat in McDonalds, looking at the brochure, checking out restaurants etc.

Next day I was off work, ill (nothing to do with the McDonalds) and spent most of the day asleep. I was home alone because my Mother had broken her ankle a couple of days before and was in hospital. Anyway, someone rang for her and after I'd explained the long saga turned the TV on...as far as I can recall, the second tower had just been hit.

For the record, we went ahead with our trip and had a wonderful time. Obviously only a few months had passed but it was heartening to see how "normal" life went on.

_____________________________________

Design a Serenity poster & win a Serenity t-shirt at http://www.destinything.com/id152.html

Visit the Browncoats' Photo 'Verse at http://disneypix.tripod.com/photoverse

www.cafepress.com/fireflyclass & www.cafepress.com/session416

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Thursday, September 15, 2005 3:38 AM

ZOOT

I’m English, but was at the time on holiday with my family in deepest darkest Peloponnesian Greece (Note: I was 28 and during the holiday I came to understand why, when you’re grown up, you should never EVER go on holiday with your folks, but I digress) … The nearest town was Sparta some 2 hours away.

The night before we were all woken up by an earthquake (my bed travelled across the floor to the middle of the room with me in it! I thought I was starring in the Exorcist for a moment)…

Anyhow, my sister was pregnant with her second child and my parents hadn’t yet got up, so the rest of us were sitting on my sister and brother-in-law’s bed chatting, when suddenly my best friend rang, asking had I heard the news. When I said no, he suggested I sit down. I’ll never forget the few moments after we found out. My sister (pregnant and highly emotional) burst in to tears and started wailing that she didn’t want to bring a baby into the world in the midst of a third world war and my brother said: “Well, that’s it. We’re not getting home, but there are worse places to be than Greece and at least the whole family is here!”

It all felt very unreal, as we were in such a blissful place with sand and blue seas etc. and it did feel like the world was in serious crisis. All the Greek waiters at the restaurants we went to said things like: “Well, that’ll show the Americans!” The strength of anti-US feeling was very strong and I was glad for once to be English.

Suffice it to say, we did get home, although we were body searched before we were allowed on the plane and they took away a plastic cocktail stick I’d been saving as a memento (I coulda done a whole heap of damage with that!)

But by the time we returned to the UK the shock was over and I sort of felt like I’d missed the whole thing! But possibly it was a good thing to miss!!

***************************************

Okay, I'm lost, I'm angry, and I'm
armed.

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Thursday, September 15, 2005 4:03 AM

KNIBBLET

I was with the corporate finance offices for one of the largest retailers in the country. Our offices were in the IDS Tower, the tallest building in Minnesota.

My husband phoned from home (he's a night shifter and watches the Today Show before going to bed) and told me that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.

My first question, "St. Paul or New York?"

"New York"

We calmly discussed the incident in the 1945 when the B25 crashed into the Empire State Building. We concluded there must be terrible weather in New York and then hung up.

Several minutes later the phone rang again. His voice when he told me about the second plane and second tower had a tone I never want to hear again. We knew right then that it was terrorism.

I walked the 8 feet to the conference room and turned on the TV. Within moments the room was filled with people -- people who then drifted away to go home to their families.

We heard Tom Brokaw announce that the IDS Tower in Mpls had been evacuated. We all looked at one another and someone asked, "So did they forget to tell us?". Another lady said, "Tom Brokaw's word is good enough for me. Bubbye!"

We didn't lose anyone from our company; however, we lost many contacts from banks and financial institutions who had offices in the Towers.

My husband knew one of the flight attendants. They'd been stationed together years before.

http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/MN-Firefly/

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Thursday, September 15, 2005 4:26 AM

SPINLAND

I was still on active duty, stationed in upstate New York at a research lab. I'd just finished showering after biking to work, was parking my bike in the office when my wife phoned to say a plane had hit one of the Towers. Then she called right back with news of the second one, and people started coming out of offices all up and down the hall. We congregated into conference rooms where there were televisions we set on CNN, and spent the morning in stunned silence punctuated by angry outbursts. Not long after the call came out to evacuate all government facilities and we were sent home to phone standby. The following days were numbed enduring of meetings, briefings, sentry schedules and other tasks that really didn't fill the hollow feelings.

---------------------------
I didn't do it.
You can't prove it.
The sheep are lying.

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Thursday, September 15, 2005 4:39 AM

THIEFJEHAT

I was just out of college and had started as a construction manager for an interstate highway contractor in Indianapolis IN. I was doing paperwork at a desk in a construction trailer with another guy when the radio broke a story that there had been a terrible "accident" in New York to one of the twin towers. Then 10 minutes later we heard that the other tower was hit and then after that the pentagon.

By then several managers and a couple foremen were all listening and, I'll remember this forever, one foreman who was a vet of vietnam from 69-70 looked at us and said: "Boys we're going to war." and it felt so scary when I realized the true implications of that statement.

Later I would drive to a local tire/oil change place and watch their TV in the waiting room as the 1st then 2nd towers came down.

By the afternoon we had halted work on I-465 and workers were going home and getting american flags to mount on all the construction equipment. Thousands of motorists drove by and saw our patriotism during the afternoon rush hour and the volume of horn honking was astonishing.

That evening as the sun set, I had finished up some final issues and was walking back to my truck. Everyone of course was talking about the events of the day. One guy looks at me and asks "What day is it anyway?"

It's a valid question. Often in construction days blur and you can forget what day is what so I looked down at my watch with the date stamp and said to him...

"Today is September the 11th, 2001."

And I never forgot that.

Do not fear me. Ours is a peaceful race, and we must live in harmony.

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Sunday, September 18, 2005 11:59 AM

FINN MAC CUMHAL

I was on my way to RSIC, when I got a call on my cell. It was a friend of mine, who said, “Something has happened,” and that they had called an all hands briefing immediately. My thought was that there has been a major security violation. Someone had misplaced a harddrive or something like that. I turned around and headed back to the building.

The news was playing on the radio and I wasn’t listening, but I remember the phrase “massive casualties.” It was difficult to figure out what they were talking about, and I don’t remember explicitly anything else that was said, but those words are seared into my head. The only thing I could think was that it sounded like a balcony had collapsed. I don’t know why I thought that. I never imagined that it was related to what I was being called back for.

I got to the building and my boss met me as a came through the front door. Once inside, he said “We’ve been attacked. New York was hit. Tens of thousands are dead.” My thought was someone has finally hit us with a nuclear weapon. And I had that feeling where all the blood rushes away from your extremities.

I got to the briefing room, just in time to see the second tower collapse and hear about the Pentagon. Almost everyone was there, others were trickling in. Little by little we began to realize what was happening. Then, I think, everyone of us knew what was coming. There was a sense that things were different now. But no one talked about it. We all had our jobs and that's what we did.

-------------
Qui desiderat pacem praeparet bellum.

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Sunday, September 18, 2005 7:42 PM

HANITRADER

Hhhmmmmmm... .

On the Ninth floor of a Seattle Hospital... pulling a shift in the ICU- too little sleep at the time. Working with blinders on in order to stay focused on work- I recall anxious rumors and mutterings of disbelief around me about Airplanes and New York.

It all came togather in a patient's room- the wall-mounted television that is inevitably on in every room that no-one seems to watch spelled it all out. Kinda a frozen block of time in my mind... I remember having just finished an assessment on a gentleman that was Septic and being kept under with a continual flow of milk-of-amnesia (great stuff, that). He'd had abdominal surgury, and the surgeon could not close him up. So there was this guy lying unconcious with his belly open for all the world to see. I was fastidiously inspecting the afore mentioned area and the T.V. was droning on about "-the tower is collapsing-". I remember thinking to myself, "I really need to get more sleep to deal with this shit..."

Needless to say, the info was shelved until a break came around- and then recall thinking- "I wonder if Hank's OK." The day was surreal blur.

That's where I was.

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Sunday, September 18, 2005 8:11 PM

HARDAN

It was a sunny late afternoon in switzerland. Me and my colleague were working in our office (yes in a bank :)), when shortly before we wanted to leave we got an email, concerning telephne problems. The wrote something like "We all heard what happened overseas, the telephone-lines are all overloaded....."

We just look at each other and asked ourselves what had happened. In the internet (which was extremly slow that time) all we found out was that a plane had hit the WTC. We thought it would be a small plane who was flying to close and made jokes about how stupid that pilot had to be.

About ten seconds after I got home and put on the TV, the first tower collapsed. THAT was a shock...

-----------------------------
Yes there are Fireflyfans all over the world. Even in little switzerland.

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Monday, September 19, 2005 7:56 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

I was driving to work and turned on the radio. I heard that fighter jets had been scrambled to protect downtown Los Angeles buildings, so it wasn't until I got into work that I realized it was because of the WTC. We watched the second jet hit and on past after both buildings came down.

I work with some really bright people. Within 20 minutes collectively we had the details worked out. It was at the time that I said in complete error - it's a big country, it will take more than this to bring the US to a halt.

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

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Monday, September 19, 2005 10:10 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Like many, I was in the car, listening to the radio. A friend of mine who worked for CNN at the time was up in New Jersey , just across the river. I was suppose to be up there w/ her, but ..well, that's another story.

Anyway, I was in front of a t.v. as the 2nd plane attacked. What stuck out in my mind was the news( forget which station I was watching ) anchorette amazingly asking the most inane questions.... " could this have been an accident? " I'm sitting here watching this airliner fly into the largest buildings in NYC, on a perfectly clear Sept. morning, and this bimbo kept trying to promote the idea that there could be some sort of beacon malfunciton w/ the airport that was guiding planes into the WTC. She was watching it, everyone was watching the same thing....guidence malfunction?? I guess it was incomprehensible to her that this really could be happening. She needed a logical explanation for what she was seeing...it couldn't be planes INTENTIONALLY flying into buildings.... despite what she had just seen.

My friend had been out late the night before, and was still zonked out when the planes hit the WTC. After she woke up a bit later, and saw what had happened, she made her way to the waterside... she said all she could do was just sit there and watch the smoke.

" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "

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Monday, September 19, 2005 12:50 PM

PIFFLE101

In the car in Sixth grade on the way to school and heard the radio/newpaper.

"It's okay to leave them to die."
"I'm a leaf on the wind."
---------------------------
Im required to do this: Serenity is coming. 9/30/05

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